


don't try to wake me in the morning

by wanderseeing



Category: The Avengers (2012), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Depression, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mentions of self-harm, Pretending, Self-Hatred, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-02-22
Updated: 2012-02-22
Packaged: 2017-10-31 14:22:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/344989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderseeing/pseuds/wanderseeing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Waking up.</p><p>Waking up was always the hardest part.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> And here's another multi-chaptered WIP that I decided to post because I feel like I'd get motivated to finish it if I did. This...will take a while to finish writing because I'm using experience to help write this. So, yeah. Thanks for reading, and hope you enjoy! (or cry, because it's an angst fic, and I want to spread the Tony feels. XD)
> 
> (Title is a line that came from the song 'Asleep' by Emily Browning. The fic was pretty much inspired by it.)
> 
> [ABANDONED]

When it came to Tony Stark, people thought they knew everything about him.

And since he never bothered to hide himself, unlike most celebrities, others took advantage of Tony’s hard-to-find nonchalant attitude. They researched as much as they could about him: Birth date, birth place, blood type, IQ level, hobbies, likes and dislikes, how much he earns in a month, his little quirks--- ** _everything_**.

They’ve read about him, watched him in action and dissected every one of his movements and all the little words that have slipped out of his mouth. To them, Tony was no longer an enigma, an unclassified blip on their radar. Now, they had a list of things that blip could possibly do next, and even if it did something that should shock people, everyone found it no surprise because expecting the unexpected is what happens to you after encountering the infamous Tony Stark.

They were so proud of all the information they had on him that they looked down their noses at the man himself, thinking that they had him all figured out. ‘ _You’re just another open book we’ve read front to back, word per word_ ,’ was what the look in their eyes said, ‘ _we’ve exposed you, and seen all your insides. What’s so special about you, now?_ ’

Had they looked as deep as they said they really had, they would have noticed that Tony Stark was a _brilliant_ actor, able to deceive and fool and trick people into believing that what they saw was his everything, but it was all actually just for show.

So, when it came to Tony Stark, people thought they knew everything about him, when, in reality, they still knew nothing about him at all.

( _Sometimes, he wished they did though, so that maybe at least one of them would understand, but no, that was too selfish of him to think._ )


	2. Chapter 2

“Big man in a suit of armor, take that away and what are you?” 

Steve Rogers looked down at him, his mouth pulled into a frown and eyebrows drawn together in frustration.

‘ _I don’t know_.’ Tony wanted to say. ‘ _I don’t know what I am_.’

But that wasn’t a very Tony Stark thing to say. If he said that, then his cover would be blown, and that was just unacceptable. What Tony Stark _would_ say, however, would be: 

“A genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.” 

Blue eyes narrowed.

He threw in a smirk for good measure, and---bingo.

Tony Stark just loved to piss people off. 

The door slammed shut behind Captain America’s broad back.

Natasha spoke from where she was sitting, quietly cleaning her gun, voice still managing to sound angry and yet indifferent at the same time. 

“The guy just recently woke up from a 70 year ice-induced sleep. The least you could do is spare him from your usual asshole-ry, but I suppose even _that’s_ too difficult for you to achieve.”

He wasn’t asshole. ( _Yes he was._ ) Tony Stark was the asshole. ( _But wasn’t he Tony Stark?_ ) Maybe if he weren’t playing Tony Stark, he would’ve answered more honestly, would’ve said: ‘ _I’d be a despicable monster. I actually am, all the time, but you don’t see that because I have Tony Stark to distract you with. Take away my suit, and I’ll only find another version of me to play, because I can’t let you see that monster. Not ever._ ’

But he **_was_** playing Tony Stark, so he had to swallow those words down and spit out bullshit instead. 

( _He was getting tired of pretending_.)


	3. Chapter 3

Iron Man. Tony Stark. Anthony Stark. Tony. Stark.

He felt like a filing cabinet that contained all these neatly arranged folders, and inside every folder were even more papers with more personalities printed out.

Iron Man was for the battlefield. He saved people. Protected them. Made them feel safe. Iron Man was a hero, all he ever wanted to, but _could never_ , be.

Tony Stark was for everyone. He was a jerk and an asshole. He was a genius, a playboy, a billionaire and a philanthropist. Also lazy and good-for-nothing, but, hey, wasn’t that a given? Pretty much useless at everything except for building shit that took people’s lives away, or things that only satisfied his own selfish, _selfish_ , wants. Tony Stark was everything he was, yet never wanted to be.

Anthony Stark was an obsolete. He was a trying-too-hard-to-be good boy, who worked hard ( _but never got anywhere_ ) and tried his best to meet everyone’s expectations ( _and he failed every single one, too_ ). He was a pathetic kid who only wanted his mother to love him, and his father to even just _look_ at him. But Anthony was never allowed to be seen anymore, because his parents were gone, and what was the use? He was just a terrified, lost, kid still inside the monster he grew into.

Tony and Stark were a lot of people in themselves. Everyone had a slightly different Tony, and a slightly different Stark, depending on the person. Like, for example, there was a Pepper’s Tony, a Rhodey’s Tony, a Happy’s Tony, a Fury’s Stark, a Clint’s Stark, etcetera, etcetera. The list could go on and on. Tony and Stark were almost as much of a default as Tony Stark was, like sub-categories. They were the expectations that people had of him, and so he gave them to everyone with all these tweaks to fit their standards. There was **_absolutely_** no room for error, because if something happened where he accidentally became Pepper’s Tony to Justin Hammer, and Hammer’s Tony to Pepper, things would go terribly wrong, and he could _not_ allow that to happen.

( _The real him, though? You wouldn’t want to know about him. He was the worst person in the world. He was Tony Stark and Anthony Stark and so much more shit rolled into one. Was there even a real him? He didn’t know anymore_.)


	4. Chapter 4

Anthony Stark wasn’t like his father.

Most people said he was, but, really, he wasn’t.

He really wasn’t.

Once upon a time, when everything was perfect, and he couldn’t see the cracks, Anthony wanted to grow up and be _just like_ his father.

“A genius,” his mother’s and father’s friends said, smiling down at him when he presented diagrams of inventions that he was planning to make, crude equations written by an unsteady hand scattered across the whole paper, when he should have only been learning how to remember his numbers, not whole formulas, “Just like his father.”

Anthony would look up at them, and smile back, but his mind had already gone off again, thinking of new things, more equations, that would result in something that would turn the heads of the two people he wanted to smile at him the most. ( _So many years, so many inventions, later, and he became absolutely sure that no matter what he made, they’d never be proud of someone like **him**._ )

He felt bad, of course, when they ignored him, and after a little while, the rest of the adults learned how to pay no attention to him, too. It wasn’t like there was ever any surprise about him being a prodigy, being his father’s son.

But, Anthony was a good boy ( _He was, wasn’t he? **Wasn’t he**?_ ), and _good_ boys stay quiet and did not throw tantrums or whine to get other people’s attention. _Good_ boys do as they’re told without complaint. No questions asked, alright, Anthony? So shut up and be still, I don’t want to hear _anything_ out of you.

That’s what his nannies told him, at least, whenever they mistook his ‘trying-very-hard-not-to-cry’ face with a ‘I’m-going-to-throw-the-worst-tantrum-you’ve-ever-seen’ face. After a while, he learned how to hold it in, how to keep his face smiling. Everyone liked it much better when they saw what they expected to see. On the plus side ( _Was it really such a good thing?_ ) he felt like he was able to meet a little of everyone’s expectations of him. Even just a tiny bit.

And Anthony worked. Worked and worked and worked and worked. He politely attended play dates and other children’s birthday parties, but he knew he was never really wanted there, because all the other kids didn’t know what to make of that boy who sat at his end of the table, drawing numbers and other weird things into the napkins, who kept to himself and used words they couldn’t understand. So, he buried himself in his work and kept trying and trying and trying, hoping he would come up with something that would make Howard and Maria **_see_** him, and not just look through him.

When he was deemed too smart by his school, though, and was told he’d be sent to a boarding school instead, he was confused and terrified. Weren’t his grades high enough? They were all good, the _best_ , even, the principal told him, but the thing was, he was _too_ good. The principal said he was smart enough to skip from fifth grade all the way to seventh, wasn’t that _great_? ( _No, it wasn’t. It never was. Why do they keep treating him so special? If he really was, his parents would **smile** at him, but they didn’t, so ‘Anthony’ and ‘special’ could never be in one sentence._ ) And so, even if he wanted to do anything _but_ , Anthony laughed and smiled and said yes, sir, it _was_ great. 

He went home to tell his parents the news, but surprise, **surprise** , his bags were already packed, and they’d gone on a trip to Washington for Howard’s presentation of his latest breakthrough invention. 

Anthony sat on his bed and schooled his face into impassiveness, trying not to think about how he wouldn’t be able to sit in his father’s workshop anymore, occasionally touching something in Howard’s line of view so he could snap at Anthony to “Stop touching that, it’s important,” or pestering his mother with drafts of robots and gadgets he planned to build while she was busy so she would say “Mhmm, yes, that’s nice, now run off and play.”

He could see the pitying looks the maids and butlers gave him, but he paid them no attention, because as long as he got his parents to remember he was there, even for just a few seconds, he’d take contact in any form it could come, even if they were all absent-minded and brush-offs.

He just needed those little things to remind himself he was a real boy. ( _Like Pinocchio, but not really, because there weren’t any good fairies to grant him his wishes, and no Gepetto’s to **care**. He would have tried running away, but he was too scared no one would bother looking for him. And he loved his parents too much to ever leave them. They were all he had, in the end, after all._ )


End file.
